Hani language

The Hani language (Hani: or ; Template:Zh; Template:Langx) is a language of the Loloish (Yi) branch of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic group spoken in China, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam by the Hani people.

Distribution

In China, Hani is spoken mostly in areas to the east of the Mekong River in south-central Yunnan province, mostly in Pu'er and Honghe prefectures, as well as in parts of other surrounding prefectures. Hani is also spoken in Lai Châu and Lào Cai provinces of northwestern Vietnam and in Phongsaly Province of Laos along the border with Yunnan.

Edmondson (2002) reports that the Hani of Vietnam are distributed in two provinces of northwestern Vietnam where two distinct dialects are found, one east of Muong Te and the other to the west. The Hani of Vietnam claim to be able to communicate in the Hani language with ethnic Hani from different areas of Vietnam despite significant geographical barriers. Edmondson (2002) reports that the different Hani speech varieties in Vietnam differ mostly in lexicon.

Phonology

Hani has three main tones and two types of short vowels.

Consonants

Consonants of the Luchun dialect

		Labial		Alveolar		(Alveolo-) palatal	Velar
		plain	pal.	plain	sibilant
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
	aspirated	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
	voiced				Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Nasal		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Approximant				Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink

Vowels

Vowel length in Hani is also distinctive.Template:Sfnp

Vowels of the Luchun dialect

	Front		Central	Back
High	Template:IPA link			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Mid	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
				Template:IPAlink
Low			Template:IPAlink
Syllabic	Template:IPAlink

		Front	Back
Diphthong	Close
	Mid
	Open

Orthography

File:Lihaozhai High School - P1360829.JPG

Sign for the Lihaozhai Township High School, in Jianshui County, Yunnan, written in Hani (alphabetic), Yi (syllabic) and Chinese. The Chinese, if transcribed in Hanyu Pinyin, would be .

Oral tradition tells of an ancient written script for Hani but says it was lost when the Hani migrated from Sichuan. In China, Standard Hani, which is based on the Lüchun County dialect, is written using a Latin-based script developed by the Chinese government during the 1950s. As with the Latin-based scripts of the Zhuang, Hmong and Iu Mien languages, it uses final consonant letters to represent tone.

Consonants in Hani orthography are pronounced the same as in pinyin, with two additional digraphs for voiced fricatives in Hani. The IPA equivalents for letters in Hani orthography are provided below.Template:Sfnp

Hani	IPA
hh	ɣ
ss	z

The vowels in Hani orthography are as follows.Template:Sfnp After vowels, -v is used to mark tense vowels.

Hani	IPA
a	a
ao	ɔ
e	ɤ
ee	ɯ
ei	e
i	i
o	o
u	u
yu	ø
ii	ɨ

There are four tones, which are marked by letters at the ends of words, or not at all for the mid-level [33].Template:Sfnp Numerical Chao tones are provided below.

Hani	IPA
l	[55] (high level)
(none)	[33] (mid level)
q	[31] (low falling)
f	[24] (rising)

The letter v at the end of a syllable indicates buzzing vowels (represented with a minus sign below ◌̠ in IPA), and it can be followed by a tone letter.

Sample text

Hani	English
Aqsol liq yoqdeivq yoqpyuq bo, meeqyaovq ssolnei colpyuq qiq kov dei. Davqtavcolssaq neenyuq bel neema meeq ya siq, laongaoq meilnaol nadul meil e gaq ssol hhyul hha bavqduv nia.	All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

See also

• Hani languages

External links

• Hani language recordings at GlobalRecordings.net
• Hani–Japanese wordlist with comparison with related languages Template:In lang
• Hani language dictionary